Who says I'm gae >83

Aww thank ya!! Tbh, a LOT of browsing cool designs that I think look nice, analyzing why the colors work together, and a TON (and I do mean a TON) of constant trial an error. Lots of hue and value shifting.

Learning color theory helps a lot, but a lot of what I do feels more intuitive than me thinking to myself "this works because _". Sometimes, it just works because it works somehow.

Experiment! Throw together palettes, play around with them, see what you like. Some tips for beginners I like to give is, think about saturation, value, and hue. They're all different but one being too close to another can make the designs very muddy (In value ESPECIALLY.) Saturation is how brightly colored something is. Washed out grey to vibrant fuschia pink for example. Hue is the color something is, so green, blue, yellow, etc. And value (VERY understated in its importance) is... harder to describe in text, but think of it in brightness. How well each color contrasts. Example, some markings are very dark while others are very light! Even if the hues are different (red and blue), if the value is too close they can get kind of lost in translation and something may end up looking "off". (This is easier to explain visually, I could do a tutorial sometime maybe!)

I'm FAR from an expert on color, I've got a LOOOOT to learn and my palettes can ALWAYS improve. But that's just how I do what I do! I could be talking out of my ass here cuz I'm not a mastermind but this is just me spewing the advice and experience I've photosynthesized over the years.